Cobweb

Study Finds FOX News Actually Makes People Less Informed

A new poll from Fairleigh Dickinson University found that, statistically, people who watch FOX News are less informed than those who consume no news whatsoever. Yikes.

From the study:

People who watch Fox News, the most popular of the 24-hour cable news networks, are 18-points less likely to know that Egyptians overthrew their government than those who watch no news at all (after controlling for other news sources, partisanship, education and other demographic factors).

Fox News watchers are also 6-points less likely to know that Syrians have not yet overthrown their government than those who watch no news. "Because of the controls for partisanship, we know these results are not just driven by Republicans or other groups being more likely to watch Fox News," said Dan Cassino, a professor of political science at Fairleigh Dickinson and an analyst for the PublicMindPoll. "Rather, the results show us that there is something about watching Fox News that leads people to do worse on these questions than those who don’t watch any news at all."